Snowed In, Hanson (Mercury)

I was saving up insults like "the 90s answer to David Seville and the Chipmunks" and now I have to toss them aside. This 1997 album's not bad at all, especially if you have no preconceptions about this once-overexposed brother act. We here at Mistletunes certainly can't complain about a lineup of tunes that could have been chosen after a visit to this very website, can we? The boys grab Bruce Springsteen's arrangement for "Merry Christmas Baby" and the little guy in the group sounds a lot like Michael Jackson singing it, which is good or bad depending on your taste. Other astute choices for covers include "Little Saint Nick," "What Christmas Means To Me," "Run Rudolph Run," and they even manage not to butcher Darlene Love's "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)." There's a few original tunes as well, like "At Christmas" and "Everybody Knows the Claus." Former Hudson Brother Mark, the producer, obviously knows the ins and outs of recording a brother act. The album was reissued as a 20th Century Masters edition on Universal, but that's the same album as this.